Ranking Caribbean Countries By Population Density

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The World Bank’s recently-released World Development Report contains mounds of fascinating data about the world and, more importantly, the Caribbean. We’ll be doing a series of posts putting together the data, on everything from GDP per capita to life expectancy.

This one focuses on population density, or, to put it another way, what are the Caribbean’s most crowded and least crowded countries?

According to the data, it’s Suriname that is the most sparsely populated country in the Caribbean, with only 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, followed by its neighbour, Guyana, at just four per square kilometre.

Belize is fourth, with just 14 per square kilometre, followed by the Turks and Caicos Islands and then the Bahamas.

What’s the most densely populated CARICOM country? It’s actually Barbados, with 659 inhabitants per square kilometre.

And what’s the most densely populated country or territory? It’s Dutch St Maarten, with 1,150 inhabitants per square kilometre.

While it’s only sometimes considered part of the Caribbean, Bermuda would lead the list by far — with a population density of 1,296 people per square kilometre.

See more in the table below: (Note: data for several islands, including Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, was not included in the World Bank’s report).